ABOUT PAPUSZA Papusza is based on the true story of the Roma poet Papusza and the Polish poet Jerzy Ficowski, who discovered her great talent. Papusza was the first and only Roma woman who put her poems into writing and even published them. By doing so, she confronted the traditional female’s role in her community and as a result, she and her family were banished. It is a story of a gifted woman who wants to preserve her culture with words and has to pay a painful price for that decision. When a person is young, In heart and hope, The world opens easily With any kind of key. (Papusza) LOGLINE True story of Papusza - the first Roma woman who put her poems into writing and published them, and therefore confronted the traditional female image in the gypsy community. SYNOPSIS True story of Papusza - the first Roma woman who put her poems into writing and published them, and therefore confronted the traditional female image in the gypsy community. The film follows Papusza’s life from birth to old age: arranged marriage as a small girl, her life in a gypsy tabor before, during and after second world war, then forced settlement in communist Poland and urban life in poverty. Her meeting with the Polish poet Jerzy Ficowski, who discovered her great talent for poetry and published her works led to a tragic paradox: a famous poet was living in poverty, rejected by the Roma community, for betraying their secrets. PAPUSZA | Poland 2013 | Written & Directed Joanna Kos-Krauze & Krzysztof Krauze 2 WHAT MAKES PAPUSZA SPECIAL? ORIGINAL ROMA LANGUAGE The ensemble of actors includes mostly non-professionals from Roma families. Their emotional and natural performances create an impressive and enchanting authenticity. Polish professional actors also speak mostly in Roma language, which accounts for 80% of the script. VISUAL STYLE Crisp, black and white compositions shot by Krzysztof Ptak (multi-awarded DOP of over 80 films) and Wojciech Staroń (Silver Bear for Best Cinematography 2011). MUSIC Specially composed for the film, includes live performances of the first ever opera with a libretto in Roma language sung by Elżbieta Towarnicka (known from Kieślowski’s Three Colours: Red and Blue). MAKE-UP With the help of astonishing make-up art and VFX, Papusza’s life story is told over the course of several decades in a highly convincing way. CULTURAL REFERENCES 1980’s edition of Jerzy Ficowski’s poems was illustrated by Marc Chagall. Papusza’s life was also fictionalized in the best-selling novel Zoli by Colum McCann (Random House 2006), whose novels has been translated to over 30 languages. He has been named one of Esquire’s “Best & Brightest“. Review quotes on Zoli: McCann takes this self-contained universe, whose “politics are road and grass”, and confronts it with its polar opposite - a hermetic society at whose frozen heart is the urge to re-engineer and homogenise the soul: postwar communism. The Guardian Colum McCann imagines a deeper, darker watchword for this immemorially wandering and persecuted people: to be understood, even in part, is to be violated and destroyed. The New York Times Zoli continues his [McCann’s] epic exploration of identity to follow the rise and decline of a Romani singer and poet. The Independent PAPUSZA | Poland 2013 | Written & Directed Joanna Kos-Krauze & Krzysztof Krauze 3 DIRECTORS‘ STATEMENT Papusza was a Roma girl, born in a carriage, an autodidact, who in the end was mentioned in the world‘s encyclopedias and had her work translated into many languages. She was also named as one of the 60 most important women in Polish history. Isn‘t this an astonishing destiny worth to be told in an epic film? For us, it was also an opportunity to introduce the world of the Romas and to give it back its dignity. The culture of the Roma has hardly ever been greeted with interest, evoking fear and aggression instead. With his monograph, Jerzy Ficowski has shed a new light on Roma people and contributed to a better understanding of that group. He confronted the schemes and prejudices, which had categorized Roma as demonic and worthless. We want to follow Jerzy’s steps and show our audience the pure and passionate soul of the Gypsy culture. Beside the two main characters – Papusza and Jerzy Ficowski – there is a third „collective protagonist“, namely the gypsy world. Reconstructing Roma way of life, which has been extin- guished in its original form from the European landscape, proved to be the biggest chalenge during our five year work on the film. Only after our work was finished, we have realised how daring a task it was to try to reconstruct this world from scratch, i.e. to build the tabors as they were and tell 80 years of Romas‘ history until the era of communist reign in Poland, which resulted in compulsory Roma settlement. Especially as there is not much documentation available on the subject Roma and their extermination while at the same time there is massive body of research into prewar Jewish culture and the Holocaust. Our film tells a story of a remarkable woman, who paid a terrible price for transgressing norms of her community and publishing her poetical works – a price of rejection and solitude. It is also a story about love and a character who is way beyond her times and has the courage to stay true to herself until the very end. It is not a biopic (in a sense that My Nikifor was also not a biography). It is not a socio-political film or a work with etnographic aspirations. It is a film about courage to create, the suffering and being alone at the peak of popularity, unrequitted love and deviotion. But also about happiness. PAPUSZA | Poland 2013 | Written & Directed Joanna Kos-Krauze & Krzysztof Krauze 4 ABOUT THE DIRECTORS Joanna Kos-Krauze and Krzysztof Krauze are Poland‘s leading film auteurs. Their work is characterised by a deep humanist approach and respect for their protagonists. Their first collaboration was Dług (Debt), directed by Krzysztof and jointly co-written. The film was recently chosen as the most important Polish production of the past twenty years. Altogether, their films have received more than 120 awards in Poland and around the world. Their films include Mój Nikifor (My Nikifor), a story about a forgotten painter (Award for Best Director in Karlovy Vary) and Plac Zbawiciela (Saviour Square), a drama about a toxic family. PREVIOUS FILMS Plac Zbawiciela (Saviour Square) - 2006 SELECTED AWARDS & FESTIVALS - Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2007 – Competition - Trieste International Film Festival 2008 – Grand Prix - 52. Semena Internacional de Cine de Valladolid 2007 - Espiga de Plata, Best Actress - Polish Film Festival (Gdynia Film Festival) 2006 – Grand Prix Golden Lion, Best Actress - Polish Film Awards 2007 – Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress Mój Nikifor (My Nikifor) – 2004 SELECTED AWARDS & FESTIVALS - Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2005 – Grand Prix Crystal Globe, Best Director, Best Actress - Chicago International Film Festival 2005 – Grand Prix Golden Hugo, Best Actor - Panorama of European Cinema, Athens 2005 - FIPRESCI Prize - Polish Film Festival (Gdynia Film Festival) 2004 - Best Actress, Best Editing, Best Costume Design - Polish Film Awards 2005 – Best Actress, Best Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Cinematography Dług (Debt) – 1999 SELECTED AWARDS & FESTIVALS - 50. Berlin International Film Festival 2000 – Panorama - Philadelphia International Film Festival 2000 – Best Director - Polish Film Festival (Gdynia Film Festival) 2000 - Grand Prix Golden Lion - Polish Film Awards 2000 – Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay PAPUSZA | Poland 2013 | Written & Directed Joanna Kos-Krauze & Krzysztof Krauze 5 PAPUSZA – JOWITA BUDNIK Jowita Budnik is a Polish actress and a talent agent. She was born in Warsaw, 1973. She graduated from the Warsaw University’s Applied Social Sciences Institute. In the year 1985-2000 she played a number of episodic roles in Polish and French features and TV series. In 1999 her career took a major shift, when she has met with the directors Joanna Kos-Krauze and Krzysztof Krauze . She has won recognition for playing supporting characters in their feature films Dług (The Debt) and Mój Nikifor (My Nikifor). Her persona inspired Krauzes to write their next feature screenplay Plac Zbawiciela (Savior Square), where Budnik played the main part. Her role was met with enthusiastic reception and won her Best Actress Award at the Polish Film Festival (Gdynia Film Festival) in 2006. SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY & AWARDS: Plac Zbawiciela (Saviour Square), dir. Joanna Kos-Krauze & Krzysztof Krauze - 2006 Mój Nikifor (My Nikifor), dir. Joanna Kos-Krauze & Krzysztof Krauze - 2004 - 52. Semena Internacional de Cine de Valladolid 2007 - Espiga de Plata, Best Actress Dług (The Debt), dir. Joanna Kos-Krauze & Krzysztof Krauze - 1999 - Polish Film Festival (Gdynia Film Festival) 2006 – Grand Prix Golden Lion, Best Actress - Polish Film Awards 2007 – Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress CINEMATOGRAPHY - KRZYSZTOF PTAK Director of Photography. Born in Sulejow, Poland in 1954. Graduated from the Higher National School of Film, Television and Theatre in Lodz –The Cinematography Department. Krzysztof Ptak pioneered the HDTV in Poland with Jan Jakub Kolski’s feature Pornografia (2003) and was one of the first Polish cinematographers to use digital cameras. SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY & AWARDS: Edi, dir. Piotr Trzaskalski – 2002 Dom zły (The Dark House) dir. Wojciech Smarzowski – 2009 - Cameraimage IFF 2002 - Golden Frog Award - Camerimage IFF 2009 – Silver Frog Award - Polish Film Festival (Gdynia FF) 2002 – Best Photography - Polish Film Awards 2010 – Golden Eagle for Best Cinematography - Polish Film Awards 2003 – Nomination for Best Cinematography Mój Nikifor (My Nikifor), dir. Joanna Kos-Krauze & Krzysztof Krauze – 2004 - Newport Beach Film Festival 2003 – Best Cinematography - Polish Film Awards 2005 – Golden Eagle for Best Cinematography Weiser, dir.